Feral Interactive has today announced Friday, August 29th as the release date for the Mac version of Sid Meier’s Pirates!, the best-selling adventure game developed by 2K Games’ successful game studio Firaxis Games.

Based on Sid Meier’s masterpiece, Sid Meier’s Pirates! invites players to live the life of a 17th century Caribbean pirate captain in an epic, open-ended seafaring adventure. Face down dogged enemies, duel enemy captains, woo fair maidens and raise the Jolly Roger high above the seven seas in pursuit of glory and riches.

"Feral Interactive is thrilled to release Sid Meier’s Pirates!,” said Feral Interactive’s David Stephen. “Its universal appeal and wonderful gameplay makes it the perfect launch title for the Feral Legends series.”

Feral Legends is a new label of Macintosh games being launched under the Feral brand. Legends will be top quality, older titles previously un-released on the Mac. They will run on all Intel Macs including MacBooks and be sold at mid-price.

Independent game studio Codeminion has released StoneLoops! of Jurassica, a "marble-popper" casual title for Mac OS X. StoneLoops! features a unique "pull & push" mechanic and dozens of colorful levels to conquer.

"In StoneLoops! we mixed thoughtful mechanics with loads of smashtastic explosions. It makes the game appeal to fans of strategic challenge and those who want to let off steam and smash some stuff into tiny little pieces! It's just really fun to play!" - says Konrad Olesiewicz, Codeminion's co-owner and Game Producer.

The game was developed by Codeminion - independent casual games studio known for such titles as Ancient Quest of Saqqarah and the hit Magic Match and brought to Mac OS X by Red Marble Games. PC version of StoneLoops! was released on March 26, 2008 and its simple yet very dynamic gameplay gained very positive acclaim from both reviewers and players.

It'll take you plenty of time to defeat the nefarious obstacles and devious bosses that challenge you, but once you do, there's no need to despair. SketchFighter 4000 Alpha's two player mode allows you to play with a friend at the keyboard, or play with other SketchFighters over the Internet for live action!

Still haven't had enough yet? SketchFighter 4000 Alpha also has a level editor that lets you create your own battlegrounds, allowing you to release your inner creativity to create levels for yourself and others to enjoy.

Apple Games latest feature shuffles the deck for a review of UNO, the latest title released for Apple's popular iPod multimedia device. The game features the classic card game action of the original along with three difficulty levels and a career mode. Apple's article includes an overview of the game, a list of special career mode rules, and some tips and tricks for optimizing your skills.

Like Crazy Eights, UNO challenges you to empty your hand one card at a time by matching the color or number of the card on the top of the discard pile. If you can’t make a match when your turn arrives, you must take a card from the draw pile. Strategy comes into play when deciding on the right moment to use a special action card, such as the Wild Color card that allows you to call out a new color or the Draw Two card that forces the next player to take two cards and miss their turn. When you drop your penultimate card, you must call “Uno!” or another player can force you to draw two cards.

On the iPod, you can play UNO against one to three human or computer-controlled players, the latter with three levels of difficulty. In Career mode, you tackle 15 increasingly difficult rounds against computer opponents; along the way, you unlock reward cups for accomplishing various tasks, such as winning the game without drawing any cards, and collect new backgrounds and other items. Career mode also tracks all of your vital statistics, including wins and losses, the number of times you’ve called “Uno!,” and more.

Basilisk Games has announced a price drop for its debut RPG title, Eschalon: Book 1. The decrease brings the price to $19.95 and is intended to encourage new gamers to check out the title.

Eschalon: Book I is inspired by classic role-playing games of the past and sends players across massive outdoor environments and deep into dozens of sprawling dungeons in a quest to uncover the mystery of their character's identity.

We are excited to announce a price drop on Eschalon: Book I from its original price of $27.95 to $19.95! Like all forms of entertainment media such as books, movies, music and especially games, there comes a time when it makes sense to lower the price of a product to attract new customers.

So, if you've been hesitant to purchase the game in the past because of its price, or maybe you've been "borrowing your friends" copy, now is when you can show your support for independent game development and classic role-playing games by purchasing a copy of Book I for yourself. Thank you very much!

Diablo community manager Bashiok recently offered a few more tidbits of information about the upcoming Diablo III, the long awaited continuation of the popular action RPG series. The latest comments cover visible damage dealt to boss monsters during combat and Blizzard's intent to encourage players to create characters on Battle.net.

On visible boss damage:For boss fights we don't really want to just start throwing "damage decals" on them. It can very easily be too subtle if you're fighting a smaller boss or one that has odd geometry to it, and it can also end up that no matter the flavor, style, and cool look to a boss you just end up fighting a big gory mess. Also we think that we can go a lot further than just simple decals and get something much cooler out of a boss fight. So what we hope to do for at least the bosses where it makes sense is to show more apparent and visually noticeable damage states. Instead of a blood splatter they may actually lose a limb, or a piece or armor, or - like the Thousand Pounder - may transform in some dramatic way changing how the fight progresses. We want to go a lot further than just showing sword slashes and instead use dramatic and noticeable (which can be difficult in a game like this) ways to indicate a boss' current state.Speaking of battle damage though, and I don't think this came across in the gameplay video or any of the screenshots as of yet, but when an enemy dies a critical death it actually drenches your hero in blood if you're within proximity of the spray. It's awesome.

On Battle.net play being encouraged:One thing that seems to be a fairly consistent experience for a lot of people when they first picked up Diablo II was their introduction to Battle.net. And it wasn't generally a positive one. Most people, including myself, went home and installed the game and started playing. Over maybe a few weeks or months they've finished the game maybe a few times, they had a ton of fun, but they keep playing and trying to find more items. One day while loading up the game they notice the "Battle.net" button and decide to click it... and, their characters aren't there. They have to start over. Any of us would have gladly played on Battle.net (in passworded games if necessary) just to have that online/trading option for their character available to them. It felt like a lot of wasted time to find the actual game, which was on Battle.net. While "starting over" is something almost every Diablo II player is going to do any way, the lack of on-screen instruction or indication as to what the different systems meant left a bad taste. To help avoid that type of situation we're going to try to find ways to encourage Battle.net character creation first and foremost.

IMG's own Brad Custer returns with a new creation. He has designed this week's desktop after Feral's World War II-based, Battlestations: Midway.

Titled "Pin-Up," the desktop picture features the eye candy of the same name:

This week Battlestations: Midway from Feral Interactive started to ship and some of my viewers are looking to decorate their desktops accordingly. I pride myself on honoring all your requests so this week we head off for the Pacific. While researching the artwork available for the game I came across some great pin-up girls for it. So, I had the tough decision of either creating a desktop with an epic battle scene or pin-up girls. What to do...what to do. It really didn't take me that long to decide and this creation was made with the help of Eidos Interactive.

Readers interested in downloading this latest work can do so at the usual place, Custer's Desktops.
Custer's Desktops